Written by Camille White
Brackett Library hosted its annual book signing during Homecoming weekend. It was held in the Hammon Student Center in front of the bookstore Nov. 4. Published alumni, professors and students were invited to participate. Public systems and services librarian Brenda Breezeel said that Brackett Library director Jean Waldrop started this event over 10 years ago.
“She started gathering and inviting, and so it’s kind of grown from there,” Breezeel said. “So each year, we find a few more people.”
The books range from general fiction to true stories to Bible commentaries.
“They’re there selling their books, [and they will] autograph them if you want,” Breezeel said. “It’s simple, casual. … These are Harding people, you know, that have written these great books.”
Professor of English and Writing Center director Nick Boone said this was his second year to participate in the book signing. Boone said “Call Me Buf” is a book that his grandfather wrote, but he signed in his place.
“I like the way that he put it,” Boone said.“’It’s Nick’s book. I just wrote it.’ Nick being me. Meaning that I had to encourage him to write the book — to write these stories about his life. I’d been doing it for years and years. And, finally, I felt like I had kind of a critical mass of stories. I was able to start putting them together. So I organized the book, and wrote portions of it to create links between the stories that he wrote.”
“Call Me Buf” was released in 2021, and Boone said the library asked if he wanted to participate again, so he said yes.
“I’m looking forward to talking with other people about the book, introducing them to my grandfather, his life and encouraging them to read about, you know, a different era in history, [the] history of the Church of Christ, as well, since he was a minister in the Church of Christ,” Boone said before the event.
Tiffany Yecke Brooks is a Harding alumna and author. She worked as a ghostwriter for 14 years and began publishing under her own name in 2020.
“It’s exciting to be on campus today, see other Harding authors, see people from all different eras,” Brooks said at the event. “It’s just wonderful to see the creativity of, you know, so many different Harding alumni [and] professors.”
Authors interested in doing the event in future years can email library@harding.edu.
